Blooded
Page 22
“Yes.” Giles pushed up his glasses and wiped the beads of perspiration from his brow. “It might have turned out to be the longest night mankind has ever known.”
“It certainly feels that way.” Cordelia sniffed. “I just want to go home and . . . by the way, Summers, where’s my car?”
“I’m sure it’s around here somewhere,” Buffy replied, snuggling into Angel’s embrace, wincing at the pain in her abdomen.
“Buffy.” Willow reached for her friend. Buffy nodded back, giving her an “I’m going to be fine” look.
Xander cleared his throat. “Y’know, not that I’m not doing a little happy-to-be-alive dance—which, for those of you who don’t know it, is generally done with little in the way of actual pirouettes—but I’m a little bothered by this whole Chirayoju thing.”
“Only a little?” Willow looked at him, a small smile on her face.
“No, really,” Xander argued. “I mean, don’t we have enough local vampires? Now we have to start importing them?”
“C’mon, Xander, haven’t you heard?” Buffy asked. “We live in the Hellmouth. This is, like, Disney World for vamps.”
“I’d hate to see Mickey,” Willow muttered.
“You’re missing the point, Will.” Xander pointed at a certain young Slayer. “To the vampires, Buffy is Mickey.”
* * *
And they went on that way, mixing their cartoon metaphors and generally making Buffy’s headache worse, until they had to split up to get to Giles’s and Cordelia’s cars. Buffy paused then and took Willow aside, away from the others.
“Are you okay?” she asked, when she and her closest friend were out of earshot of the others.
“You’ve got a hole in your stomach, and you’re asking me if I’m okay?”
Buffy looked at her gravely. “Will. Are you okay?”
Willow smiled sheepishly, shrugged a little Willow shrug, and nodded.
“I’ll be all right,” she replied. “I still think I should learn to fight a little better, but I doubt after the past week I’ll ever start thinking that being the Slayer would be a good thing. No offense.”
“None taken,” Buffy said, grimacing in pain. “Besides, if I’m going to be laid up for a night or two, Giles may need a little help out on patrol. And you know Xander . . . he’s a little distracted by that case of Cordy on the brain that he’s come down with. Somebody’s got to look out for him.”
Willow grinned, then helped Buffy over to Giles’s car.
In the back of Giles’s ancient four-wheeled monster, on the way to the emergency room, Buffy fell soundly asleep in Angel’s arms, a bittersweet smile on her face.
Bittersweet because she knew, even as she drifted off, that in the morning he’d be gone. But not forever. Not even for long. It was the curse of the Slayer, and the gift of her love for Angel, that the night would always come again.
And in the front seat, next to Giles, Willow felt a curious lightening inside her, as if the heaviest of burdens had been lifted. Giles must have noticed, for he cocked his head, half taking his eyes off the road, and said quietly, “Willow?”
“You know,” Willow said, “it’s a lot of work and everything, fighting the forces of darkness on such a regular basis. But I think if we all stick together, we just might win.”
Giles smiled. He was the luckiest of men.
And the most fortunate of Watchers.
“Bravo,” he whispered, and drove on.
About the Authors
Christopher Golden is the best-selling author of the epic dark fantasy series The Shadow Saga, as well as the X-Men trilogy Mutant Empire and the current hardcover Codename Wolverine. With Nancy Holder, he has written several other Buffy projects, including the Gatekeeper Trilogy and The Watcher’s Guide. He is currently at work on a series of YA mystery novels for Pocket Books. Please visit him at www.christophergolden.com.
Four-time Bram Stoker Award–winner Nancy Holder has sold thirty-six novels and over two hundred short stories, articles, and essays. She has also sold game-related fiction, and comic books and TV commercials in Japan. Her work has been translated into over two dozen languages. She and Christopher Golden have written four Buffy-related books together, the most recent of which was Blooded. She is the author of Gambler’s Star: The Six Families, book one of a science-fiction trilogy for Avon Books, due out in October 1998. She lives in San Diego with her husband, Wayne, and their daughter, Belle.
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